Working on a meal plan

 

I don't have a complete meal plan down for this coming week as I'm not sure if we will have company during the first half of the week, but I do have these parts nailed down:

• Daily breakfast smoothie
• "Isreali" salad (also called Arab salad, Turkish salad, or simply vegetable salad)
• Pearl couscous with vegetables
• Daily protein
• Goal of 25+ grams of fiber daily
• Limited sodium and cholesterol

(Like the rainbow effect? Work on eating fresh foods from all colors of the rainbow 

to make sure you get the maximum range of nutrients in your diet!)

Why do I only have two actual dishes listed? As mentioned, I don't know if we will have company or not, and last time our company was here, my meal plan kind of fell apart (my own fault, but also not planning well enough to have the right amount of food for everyone). I also have a growing 16 year old son who tends to eat everything in sight, often unintentionally throwing my plan off. I plan to make a HUGE batch of both the salad and couscous. They will be the base of my lunch every day this coming week. Both are packed with veggies, super yummy, and filling! The Israeli salad is also raw, if that is something that interests or concerns you.

I consider myself a flexitarian, and my diet is naturally very low in cholesterol, never contains dairy, and over the last few years has included less and less gluten (but without being gluten free). Although I really enjoy vegan meals, I still eat eggs, fish, and occasionally poultry or meat.

One of my daily snacks will include either almonds or hard boiled eggs. In the evenings I almost always have either frozen raspberries (plain - they are sweet enough to not need anything added!) or natural popcorn with a sprinkling of nutritional yeast (an awesome substitute for Parmesan cheese!).

Every smoothie will include ground flax meal - I have never been so regular in my life since I started using flax in my smoothies! Most of my smoothies are 100% fruit and water with no added sugar or sweeteners. On occasion, I may use some rice milk, coconut yogurt, or sunflower seed butter.

Check back every day this week to see what I really ate and get the recipes for my smoothies, the Israeli salad, and the pearl couscous with veggies. The smoothies will be a preview of my upcoming 100 Simple Smoothies e-book.

On Sunday I will post my starting measurements and on Saturday my follow-up measurements. And, in addition to posting my meals and smoothies for the week, I'll also let you know what I'm doing for exercise. My goal is to create simple, easy to follow nutrition and exercise plans for those of us that are maybe a bit less motivated or for some reason less able to really work out hard but still care about our health.